Customer Reviews

Handle With Care

5 star:		(129)
4 star:		(78)
3 star:		(96)
2 star:		(78)
1 star:		(74)

 

 

I really love Jodi Picoult's books. I find she tackles very tough subjects in a captivating and stimulating manner. She takes chances on subjects that other authors just gloss over too afraid to really speculate about the feelings of the participants. If you were the mother of a child that was bullied or was the bully, "Nineteen Minutes" was your worst nightmare. So believable.

I found "Handle With Care" engrossing. I have a child with limited handicaps and I felt for Willow with every breath. But for me this was one more trial, one more heart-wrenching child, one more set of confused and inarticulate parents, one more lawyer with "issues" and one more manipulated ending too many. I can't tell you how very disappointed I was with this book. Lots of meringue but the filling was not fresh.

I've read ALL of Jodi Picoult's books. Some of my favorites are Perfect Match, My Sister's Keeper, and The Pact. Compared to those books, her latest release, Handle with Care, is contrived, sloppy, boring, and disappointing. Oh, and too many points of view included. I almost laughed at the ending because I honestly didn't think the book could have ended with more of a cop-out.

It doesn't seem like the publishers bothered copyediting or proofreading this book. Kitty Litter should not be capitalized. I don't care how "mature" a 6 year old is, she would create a Gmail account. And, Jodi, please spare me the gratuitous references to Facebook. These are just a few things I can think of off the top of my head -- there were many more.

Perhaps releasing one book a year is too much for Jodi Picoult, because the product is suffering. Her stories used to be contemporary, heart-wrenching and full of plot twists.

Handle with Care is simply a regurgitation of lawyers, sisters with issues, second marriages, etc. With some bulimia and cutting thrown in and not really addressed. Not to mention the recipes. What was the point of those? Charlotte's career as a pastry chef seems conveniently trendy and never becomes anything more than that, except for the lame recipes scattered throughout the book. It's like Jodi's editors and marketing team sat around a table and came up with every single thing they could incorporate into this book and then threw each thing in, none of which were successful.

I'm glad I got this from the library instead of purchasing it. What a disappointment. Don't bother.

but all the care in the world cannot save the people we love necessarily.

I had this book delivered to my kindle the day it was released and read it straight through.

I'll tell you right up front I am a Jodi Picoult fan. Easy, entertaining reads- great for bathtubs and airports and right before bed. Some of her books have been less entertaining than others but I always find I enjoy the way she paints such a realistic portrait of her characters. I really do feel for them.

This story, as you'll read in other reviews and the synopsis, is about a family dealing with their youngest daughter's affliction with osteogenesis imperfecta which causes brittle and easily broken bones. Willow, so named by her mother who wanted to give her a legacy of something that would bend and not break despite her husband's protestation that willows weep- here Picoult gives such a combination of foreshadowing because Willow turns out to be an amazing, strong little character with such a love and longing for all the amazing things in the world.

The story goes far beyond a girl or her family coping with a debilitating disease. Not unlike in "My Sister's Keeper", Picoult shines light on the relationship of two siblings... one 'normal' and the other 'broken' and the center of attention, 'handled with care'. The braid that exists between sisters of jealousy and love and connection. She also hits home with poignant moments that so many of us can relate to, for example when Amelia(the elder daughter) says, " "Yes," I said, the lie coming easily, reminding me that, even as much as I hated her right now, I was my mother's daughter."

Like many of Picoult's books, this one is written from multiple points of view and the chapters are titled with the name of whose story is being told and the date which provides a nice sense of continuity and timing.

This book, without giving away the specific plot details, is all about the lies we find ourselves telling, the people we find ourselves changing into in order to protect those we love, what and who we are willing to sacrafice and the pain and necessity of it all... but also to protect our belief... that we have done all we can do, that we have been the best we can for those that we love and in the end, really cannot help or save. And that is more about saving ourselves than anyone else.

An easy read, very touching and gripping. Reading Picoult's writing is a little like listening to someone play the piano with the modulations in tone, slower, faster, rising, falling and finally coming together in the end. "Handle with Care" ends with a wonderful and terrible irony, a lesson for everyone who reads this tale I think.

Definately worth the read but be prepared for a rollercoaster of emotions if you allow yourself to go there. I did, and it was well worth the ride.

I have enjoyed Jodi Picoult's books since the very early days in the 90s, and I have to say that although they were getting better and better, she definitely plateaued around Nineteen Minutes and has now begun the downward spiral. I should add that I am also a high school English teacher, so I deal with a fair amount of books in my spare time. This book was written so similarly to My Sister's Keeper that I had a pretty good feeling on what the ending was going to be near the beginning of the book, and I was right.

Warning: mild spoiler to follow.

Like her book last year, Change of Heart, this book just seems to follow a formula she's gotten too comfortable with in her last few novels: a child with a medical issue, parents with personal issues, and an angsty lawyer with a long backstory.

Probably the worst part of this book and Picoult's recent novels is her tendency to dive into these awful comparisons. She describes characters with breath that smells of coffee and regret, and cookies that are baked with a special ingredient: the ingredient of remorse. The characters are constantly looking at or holding on to something physical, then realizing what they are really looking at/holding is a feeling: sympathy, love, grief, etc. Give me a break. I could handle these once every few chapters, but there is literally one of these every few pages. Is someone ghostwriting this stuff in?

As a mother, I found the character of Charlotte to be completely unbelievable. Throughout the novel, she recognizes the fact that filing a wrongful birth lawsuit may destroy her daughter's image of her and of herself, but all she cares about is money, even when they never previously struggled with money.

Additionally, for kicks, there is a teenage sister who is thrown in, and of course she has her teenage problems. But she has not just a few problems, but all problems: bulimia, self-mutilation, depression, blue hair. And she develops them all at once. And no one cares, and they're never really resolved.

The whole book was just very disappointing. I think Picoult needs to up her game if she plans to keep her readers. Ditch the angsty lawyer and the horrible comparisons on the feelings. And if you're a reader, take it out of the library and be thankful you can be done with it for good in three weeks. I barely made it through.

I hesitated to read Jodi Picoult's latest because I have become more and more disappointed with her recent books. Like other readers I LOVED the first few I read, especially Plain Truth and My Sister's Keeper. But she is definitely writing to formula here and it has become not only boring but infuriating to me and I can honestly say this will be the last book of hers I read unless she makes a change (which I hope she will because I do think she is a compelling writer).
I agree with many of the other reviewers' points about sloppiness (capitalizing Kitty Litter, etc.) I also agree it would have made much more sense had Charlotte not known Willow had OI until she was born.
I also do not buy Charlotte -- that she could be so uncaring a mother both to Willow (by not talking to her about her actions) and to Amelia (by neglecting her so much it is almost criminal).
Also of late it seems she just tries to pull too much into her novels, what with Amelia suffering from bulemia, self hatred, cutting, shoplifting, etc. etc. I mean, come on!
And do not even get me started on the ending.
SPOILER alert: Of course I knew Willow would die and that it would be a "shocking" ending (formulaic). But the way that it happened, with everything resolving itself and then Willow "accidentally" falling through the ice just really made me mad. It was so unnecessary and so to Picoult's formula.
Also I do not believe that Charlotte would go through everything she did and then NOT cash the check. Again, come on! And to be realistic, wouldn't there have been an appeal by the insurance company that would have dragged on and on, and if they had won in the end would they have gotten a single check for $8 million to conveniently tack up on the refrigerator?
When I read Willow's chapter my initial reaction was, "Oh come on, Jodi! You can do better than this."
Pu-leeeze.

My main problem with this book was with the wrongful birth topic. Charlotte DID find out her daughter had OI while pregnant. She COULD have had an abortion then. The story would have made more sense if there was not another ultra sound after the one at 18 weeks and they wouldn't have known until birth that the baby had OI. Marin's argument and the jury's decision seemed as if Piper caused the baby's disability. It seems unlikely to me that any jury would award damages to this couple in this situation. The whole premise seems unrealistic.

Let me be clear, I love Jodi Picoult books - 19 Minutes, The Pact, My Sisters Keeper (even though the movie ruined it) - but this book -Handle With Care, was dead from the beginning. I made it to page around 200 and struggled reading it. Usually, I am through her books quickly - anxiously waiting for the chapter. Finally, I checked Amazon, and called a few friends that had this book - none of them finished it either.

Don't discount Jodi Picoult as an excellent author, just pass by this book - the others are 100% better.

Full disclosure, I didn't finish it, I just couldn't get into it. PS: Not sure what those recipes were for, with the exception Charlotte was a pastry chef - just was a very disappointing book. Not your typical Jodi Picoult work.

Part of me wants to rate this novel lower, but the other part was really entertained for MOST of the book. So I'm averaging my warring sides and giving this novel 3 stars.

The issue of whether or not parents should be made aware of disabilities discovered while their child is in utero, so that a decision about whether or not to terminate the pregnancy can be made, is very poignant to today's science and ethics debates. The added hook of bringing in an attorney for the disabled girl's parents who was adopted helped to clarify some of the gray edges that were all over the place in this story.

The other sideline tale of Amelia, sister to Willow (the disabled child at the crux of the controversy within this story), really pulled at my heartstrings. I feel this girl, more than anyone else, felt the turmoil that resulted from having a disabled family member and a family falling apart around her.

Those are the things I liked about the story. Here's what irked me:
1. The resolution of Amelia's story came too easily. I think it sold her short.

2. I actually started a tally sheet about halfway through the novel to track how many times the phrase "catch-22" was used. Can we say overkill?

3. The diary-entry style of writing, from the characters points of view to Willow, made it really easy to pick out the ending.

4. As some others have pointed out in their reviews, this story was nearly IDENTICAL to "My Sister's Keeper" and the conclusion only confirmed what I'd been thinking for most of the story. It really felt like a cop out and Jodi Picoult is a better writer than that.

Like I said at the beginning, I was entertained for the majority of this story. The ending is really what killed it for me and I'm very disappointed because I wanted it to be a "slam-bang" finish from an author I've come to really love.

Read this story (perhaps on loan from the library?), because the issues are important and the characters in this story are very well-developed and sympathetic. But, read it with a grain of salt because if you're expecting something remarkable at the conclusion you won't find it.

Many reviewers have compared this latest novel to Picoult's earlier novel, My Sister's Keeper. Though I can see the resemblances in the novels, My Sister's Keeper is a far superior piece of work, in my opinion.

I have read all of Picoult's novels and have a few that I like more than others. This one is definately not one of my favorites. My opnion has less to do with writing style, as I do enjoy the way Jodi offers the story from the perspectives of several of her characters. I also don't have an issue as many others seemed to have with the fact that there are a lot of sub plots in this book. This, in my opinion, makes it that much more interesting.

My problem with this book is probably more of a biased opinion. I had a very had time "connecting" with the primary character in the book, Charlotte (the mom). As the mother of two children with special needs (one of which has a terminal condition), I found it very hard to be sympathetic with her battle to sue her doctor, and more importantly, best friend for "wrongful birth". She is suing not, necessarily because she feels she would have aborted her chronically ill child but because she feels the money would offer a better life for this child and would aid in paying off medical bills. I should also mention that I live in New Hampshire and am extremely familiar with the type of medical assistance available to families with disabled children and I found a lot of inconsistancies in the book as far as that goes. In my personal opinion, I just cannot fathom alienating my husband and best friend just to make a buck (or several million). In an effort to save her family, Charlotte all but destroys it and I simply don't get that.
I won't spoil the ending but suffice it to say it left me very dissapointed and feeling as though I just wasted my time reading this novel.

I'm an avid Picoult fan, but this was a huge disappointment. I found the premise faulty and the protagonist a woman I couldn't find much to like about.